


ain't my mission to fail you

by keithsforeheadtattoo



Category: Ride or Die (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:08:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24001099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keithsforeheadtattoo/pseuds/keithsforeheadtattoo
Summary: You don’t even know where he’s taking you. Colt just showed up in the garage — while you and Ximena were both drying your gel nail polish under a giant UV light of Toby’s that’s probably less-than-safe for human use — and waited his turn to speak, in uncharacteristic politeness. Asked in an almost formal tone if you were doing anything tonight.
Relationships: Colt Kaneko/Main Character (Ride or Die)
Kudos: 2





	ain't my mission to fail you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bat_country](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bat_country/gifts).



> **title is from "ride" by shango feat. vader & mako**

Colt slams back a 7UP and crushes the empty can against his shoulder like it’s a beer.

“Well,” he says, in that tone of voice he uses when he’s pretending to deliberate but knows that he’s made up his fucking mind, “you can only come with me if you promise you’re not gonna complain the whole time.”

“Only three-quarters,” you shrug. 

He tosses the can out without breaking eye contact. 

That must be good enough for him, though, because once you’ve got your jacket you’re off through the In-N-Out drive-thru and then onto the interstate, weaving and whipping in a way that must be his attempt at restraint. He’s docile enough to let you put fries in his mouth when you first hit a red light.

You don’t even know where he’s taking you. Colt just showed up in the garage — while you and Ximena were both drying your gel nail polish under a giant UV light of Toby’s that’s probably less-than-safe for human use — and waited his turn to speak, in uncharacteristic politeness. Asked in an almost formal tone if you were doing anything tonight.

Now you’re spitting out tendrils of your own hair, helmetless. Clutching your own arms together tightly. Wrapped so high up Colt’s waist you’re enveloping his ribs. A siren shrieks out two short blips and even though it’s got to be on some other side of town, couldn’t possibly be coming for you, Colt still speeds down on off-ramp and onto some tangle of backstreets.

“Do YOU know where you’re going?” you battle the wind to get right in his ear.

“Hold on,” Colt answers, and you think he just means “wait” until he zips through the next light and slices a left turn so hard you find your knees gripping desperately at him too.

He guns it up several steep hills in a row until you’re chugging past a neighborhood that’s nothing but a tagged-up graveyard of defunct businesses, a bunch of old cold buildings with the power out. Once the land plateaus out he slows to a crawl and seems to land on one lot in particular, circling the edges of its metal gates.

“You ready?” he says, and you see the part he’s staring at is a section of the fencing that’s collapsed at about a fifteen degree angle.

“Oh my god, are you serious?” you laugh, and he revs it. 

You press your face to his back, your cheek against his jacket. 

He has to back up into the driveway on the opposite side of the street to give himself a head-start, but once he does, he easily uses the metal fence like a ramp, gliding up and launching the pair of you to a bumpy landing on the grass. He brings his motorcycle to a stop and lets his kickstand share the work with a tree stump.

He helps you dismount even though he knows you know how. Colt slides his jacket over your shoulders in a single motion when he sees you crossing your arms against the cold air.

“C’mon, I can’t give you your present ’til we’re upstairs,” he gives a brusque shrug that softens under your smile.

He offers out an open palm.

“I thought the present was the ride,” you say as you slide your fingers into the familiar slots between his.

Colt leads you up the rickety steel staircase of something, maybe a fire escape, maybe a fire-eaten part of the property that was once indoors. A few steps groan under your feet but he assures you with each one that he’s been there before, a handful of times, just to scout out this spot.

“Aw,” you tease him, “just for me?”

But the “yeah!” you get back isn’t kidding, or scolding, at all. He says it the way you’ve heard him say “of course”.

You’re finally at the top, on a balcony that Colt promises you is safe. You don’t know what his definition of that word even entails but you let yourself step out after him, all the way up to the railing.

“Oh, wow…” you concede your own reverence.

You’re at the perfect spot on the crown of some hill that seems to overlook all of Los Angeles at once, all the white and yellow ribbons of light. The dark silhouettes of hundreds of high-rises. Just near you, the familiar arms of a fan palm. Two hundred million miles away, the moon. 

Colt kneads his thumbs and index fingers into the muscles of your shoulders, gentle at first, then hard after your lean your weight back into him, indicatively. 

“Happy holidays,” he says, and there’s a package pressed into your hand, an exorbitantly loaded Peet’s gift card and a few pieces of jewelry that are very much Colt’s taste.

You love them and you thank him but the parts that you remember months and years from now aren’t the presents. They’re the bird calls hooting out from a gutted warehouse, the views of the spiderwebs of traffic, the big milky sky where the Milky Way would be. 

“Here’s yours!” you surprise him when you pull a fully-wrapped gift from inside the cleavage of your shirt.

He’s already smiling from the spectacle of you fishing it out of there, but the same smile changes from amusement to an awed and quiet beam the further he unfurls the red, glittery tissue paper.

“Oh, shit…” he says, in the same esteem and wonderment you’d had for the entire city, as he first holds the scarf you made for him.

“I made it for you!!” you confess instantly.

He regards the scarf again for a good, long moment, his fingers feeling the material. 

“That’s so fuckin’ cool…” he says in a whisper that might be to you or himself.

Colt puts it on right away, wrapping it around his neck and tucking the ends inside his jacket. You can’t help but to latch onto him in a huge hug. 

“It looks so good on you!” 

You’ve been imagining the sight ever since you first picked out the right yarn to use.

“Yeah?” he says in an attempt at cockiness, but the grin you had managed to get out of him was entirely candid and tender.

He kisses you, all alone, but also in front of all of L.A.

When you see him on the news a few months later — in both the high-res photo and the blurry surveillance camera footage of the Yamaha dealership — he’s still wearing the scarf.

**Author's Note:**

> a "Choices-mas" gift for **bat_country**!! ✨✨🎄✨✨


End file.
